Look, we can land on a curve!

Keith Sissons is my late uncle who had an illustrious career flying for a living and flying for his immense pleasure. For work, he flew giants like the Short Belfast, which was a heavy lift turboprop.

This was a very versatile freighter built by Short Brothers of Belfast. Only 10 were built for the British Royal Air Force. When they were retired by the RAF, five went into civilian service with Heavy Lift Cargo Airlines.

For pleasure, Keith?flew a famous aircraft as chief captain called Sally 'B' - a second world war B-17, which was used in the film Memphis Belle.

However, I'm sure his real flying pleasure came from flying G-AIVW, a De Havilland DH.82A Tiger Moth on floats.

Keith's incredible experiences could fill many of my art canvases (see the top and bottom of this Article) and adventure books; his flying stories were amazing and unbelievable.

Here's one of his stories to give you a taster of what he used to get up to...

In 1958 he was contracted by 20th Century Fox to fly film staff and actors in and out of the African jungle whilst the company filmed "The Roots of Heaven", an adventure story with a fundamental conservation message, even in 1958!

It was directed by John Houston and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck: it was based on a book written by Romain Gary. It starred the famous Australian-born, American romantic, swash-buckling, chandelier-swinging, sword-fighting star, Errol Flynn,

and the well-known, very English actor, Trevor Howard.

It had a $3.3 budget (remember, this was 1958!), but only made $3 million at the box office.

So there was Keith, with his Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar, flying in and out of the hot and sticky French Equatorial Africa, as it was called - a federation of French colonial possessions.

In 1958, the French governed a vast area of Africa, from the Congo River to the Sahel. Today, that area comprises Chad, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo and finally, Gabon.

The jungle was an environment that took no prisoners - the cast and crew suffered from the extreme heat,?terrible malaria?and various other tropical diseases. Temperatures would routinely reach 56 C in the day and 35 C at night; people perspired so much that they had to shower four or five times a night. Some days the cast would have a four-hour drive to the location and back, and every gallon of water and supplies had to be flown in by my uncle.

The film story was pretty straightforward: Trevor Howard, who played Morel, was an active environmentalist who wanted to preserve the dwindling elephant population (even in 1958!) from extinction as a 'lasting symbol of freedom for all humanity'. The team included a nightclub hostess and Forsythe, played by Errol Flynn, a disgraced British military officer hoping to claw back his self-respect.

Keith was very sociable, and he enjoyed having a good natter with anyone.

So... when it was approaching twilight somewhere in deepest Africa, where his accommodation was only a tent, and he was cooking on a traditional campfire, he was joined by no other than Errol Flynn and Trevor Howard.

It is well known that Errol Flynn loved his drink far too much, which resulted in his liver and other parts of his, well and truly knackered body giving up the ghost when he was only 50. He is reputed to have taken his own supply of champagne, red wine, or his favourite Johnnie Walker whisky (or all three) on set with him - Keith confirmed this as part of the story.

After enjoying a 'few' around the campfire (I have to state here that Keith was adamant about not drinking and flying), Errol Flynn suggested that they all got into Keith's plane and had a 'jolly' around the jungle since the evening was 'very fine'.

Keith obliged... and so it came to pass... that he and the world-famous (at that time) Errol Flynn and Trevor Howard were on board his plane, skimming across the jungle tops with the wine still free-flowing.

When Keith returned them all safely back to camp, he was ordered to the director's accommodation, where he was told, in no uncertain terms, to 'NEVER, NEVER do that again with his world-famous actors!' Keith never told me what would have happened to him if he had repeated the jaunt, nor if he'd had an emergency in the air, with a forced landing, bending his plane and injuring and incapacitating the director's leading stars.

Now... after that African tale, let us return to the reason for the title of this article...

Keith flew the red Tiger Moth seaplane up to Hull, in Yorkshire, from his base near Rye; he had to stop at a variety of reservoirs on the way up and back home again, returning to G-AIVW's starting point, at the original Tiger Club location, at the Headcorn Aerodrome, Ashford in Kent. The flight to Hull was to join in with special celebrations concerning the famous English pilot, Amy Johnson, who was born in the city.

I met him there, and during some of his time off from displaying G-AIVW, he gave me an unforgettable flight in the wonderful SeaTiger, over the Humber Bridge - it was magical, especially watching and listening to the water passing under the floats as we gently took off.

As we approached the landing reservoir, Keith announced, ‘I'll show you something we can do that a conventional aircraft can't do!’ I wondered what he was planning, and then as we touched down with a gentle swoosh of water, Keith came over the radio and said, ‘Look, we can land on a curve!’ And he did, in a wide arc across the reservoir!??

I decided I wouldn't want to do that with wheels on a conventional runway.

I hope you enjoyed this little venture into the African jungle and over the Humber Bridge.

Peter

P.S. I nearly forgot to tell you, this is my painting of Keith in his wonderful seaplane.